One Ministries: FCC Should Require Streamers to Carry Local Stations

The FCC should classify streaming services as MVPDs to prevent discrimination in their carriage of local TV stations, said One Ministries in an ex parte filing posted in docket 14-261 Friday. Streaming services should be treated similarly to satellite MVPDs such as Dish “where if the provider chooses to offer local-into-local service ... it is required to provide subscribers with all the local broadcast TV signals that are assigned to that [designated market area] DMA, as long as they ask to be carried on the system and are otherwise eligible,” One Ministries said. The broadcaster said it had found that local full-power stations that aren’t carried by streamers “are more likely to have non English programming, be a local independent station, or be a religious station.”